2024-02-26 08:28:36
European farmers demonstrate again in Brussels this Monday. At a time when their ministers are considering reducing the greening of the CAP to try to appease this anger which is not weakening.
The discontent began a year ago in Poland, it crystallized over competition deemed unfair from Ukrainian cereals. Since then, this movement of exasperation and despair has continued to ricochet in other countries of the Union, on other grounds, in France, in Spain, in Greece or in the Czech Republic and in many others country. Around ten countries in the European Union are affected by this tractor revolution. Always with very specific demands linked to the local situation, but also an overall feeling of declining income.
Read also Farmers’ discontent spreads in Europe
The deterioration of income: the common denominator
Most are suffering from falling prices and rising production costs. This deterioration linked to inflation was very noticeable between 2022 and 2023, it is the trigger of the crisis. Two major forces are aggravating the pressure on prices according to farmers: external competition opened up by free trade agreements, and the agri-food industry within the borders of the EU. It is indeed an economic model problem from which they suffer, but this is not the subject which will be dealt with in Brussels. At the European level, the constraints linked to the greening of the common agricultural policy have become the scarecrow of the movement. And it is therefore on this variable that the commission has been playing since September to put out the fire.
The new avenues envisaged
After having relaxed the fallow rule, Brussels is ready to release ballast on the large obligatory meadows. Brussels’ controls to verify that CAP beneficiaries comply with the new requirements should be simplified. Finally, in the event of force majeure, such as a weather disaster, the constraint of this green CAP should be loosened.
Also read: Why the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is increasingly contested
The cause of the climate sacrificed to “save agriculture”
The commission acts urgently, under pressure from the demonstrations. And the electoral calendar: she wants at all costs to prevent the agricultural cause from becoming an issue in the European election campaign in June. This cause is already taken up and exploited by far-right parties. To emerge from the crisis, the commission will undoubtedly have to better explain its green pact intended to reduce carbon emissions or review the economic model proposed to farmers. Because they are convinced that the implementation of the pact will reduce their production and their income. The Europe farm emits 10% of greenhouse gases. It grows 60% of the products consumed in Europe, they argue. For them, the existential question is to reconcile the reduction in emissions with the maintenance of their production and their income. A question to which the commission is not answering at the moment.
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